Earth or Bust
by Sir Talen
Summary: Watney may have been rescued, but it's still a long way to Earth, and he's got a lot more talking to do. PG-13 for language. Because Watney. :)
1. Chapter 1

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 701**

You'd think after a year and a half of talking to myself I'd be ready to shut the fuck up, but _nope._ Turns out that the shrinks at NASA want me to keep a running log of my "reintegration experiences" now that I'm back on the _Hermes_ with honest to God other human beings to talk to. Apparently there were "some concerns" after they had a chance to read through the log entries I'd copied and brought back with me during that looney rollercoaster ride on the MAV up to _Hermes_.

I'd actually considered leaving it behind in the rover. I didn't think that the data stick's miniscule weight, less than five milligrams, would affect the launch, but by that point I was so paranoid about getting the MAV up to escape velocity that I nearly herniated myself taking one last dump before launch in the makeshift toilet I'd made with a sample box. Believe me, it was a deeply satisfying moment to drop that last potatoey turd upon the planet that had given me so much grief. After accomplishing that feat, I figured the datastick wouldn't be that much of an issue.

Actually, that brings up another thing: You might be wondering what I used for toilet paper after I ran through the supply NASA had sent along in the pre-supply probes. First off, they only sent twelve rolls, one for each of us plus the inevitable emergency backup. That sounds insane, until you realize our Hab toilet also functioned as a bidet, with more gadgets in it than the fancy seats you find in a Japanese hotel. We weren't expected to use the rolls unless the toilet malfunctioned, or we _really_ had to go while out in the Rover. I used almost all of them up on the Sirius expedition to retrieve _Pathfinder._

So what did I do during the long ride from Acidalia Planitia to the Ares 4 MAV? Let me put it to you this way: Hygiene became a _severe_ issue for me after I ran out of soap and alcohol wipes. Thank God the only germs in the Rover were my own.

Okay, I'm getting off track. It's been four days since I returned to the _Hermes_ , I suppose I should bring you up to speed on what's been happening. While Beck was examining me and taping my ribs, Commander Lewis ordered the ship's habitation wheel be spun back up to 0.3G rotation. Which was lucky for me, because it gave me the chance to have my first shower since leaving the Hab way back on Sol 449. Four months of scrubbing with just water and a hand towel had left me rather fragrant. It wasn't quite the same as the hot baths I'd rigged using the RTG back in the Hab, but _man_ it felt good.

Next: Food. Oh my God, _food._ Once the rest of the crew finished double-checking the ship's systems to make sure nothing was damaged after Lewis' emergency decompression trick, they made me a _meal_ , with mixed vegetables and a freeze dried steak that had been sent up on the _Iris 2_ resupply probe just for me. When the smell of that steak hit my nostrils I thought it was mana from heaven.

Then I had to do my damnedest not to barf as I ate. Remember, this was the first meal I had that was over 1500 calories since I'd started rationing way back on Sol 7. Just trying to finish it made me feel like my stomach was going to explode, never mind the overwhelming tastes and smells of something that was Not Potatoes. I think I got through a quarter of it before I had to push it away and ask Johanssen to put it back in the galley fridge. I felt kinda bad, since we were all together for the first time in a year and a half, having a meal together to celebrate my rescue. Beck figured it out quick though, and gave me some antacids to settle my stomach down before I embarrassed myself.

I'm actually rationing out that steak. Since the _Iris 2_ had to be carrying food for the entire crew, rather than just myself, most of the supply was the same protein bars that had caused so much trouble on the first _Iris_ launch. I want to enjoy the taste of meat as long as I can.

After that we sat and listened to audio message the president sent us, congratulating our crew for the incredible rescue, showing a fine example of human determination, blah, blah, blah. I'll be honest, I wasn't listening it much. Aside from my stomach bothering me it just felt so damned _good_ to be with everyone again that I was kinda spacing out.

Then Johanssen uploaded a video message to my personal laptop. I took it back to Beck's room _cum_ medical suite and watched it. It was from my parents, recorded just after Commander Lewis sent confirmation that I was safely aboard. It says something about NASA's priorities that they reserved the bandwidth for a full video message for my parents, and had the President make do with an MP3. Good going guys

Fuck they look tired, and maybe about ten years older than the last time I saw them, just before the ferry launch from Cape Canavaral up to the _Hermes._ They both said congratulations and how much they're looking forward to seeing me when I come home. I sent an email back letting them know I'm okay. Beck advised me against sending any video. After looking at myself in the mirror I gotta agree. No sense in scaring the shit out them by showing off my cool zombie cosplay. I really do look like one of the walking dead, what with yellow teeth and sunken cheekbones and pain lines from all the shit I went through during the launch.

By the time I get back it's going to be over three years since they saw me in person. That's seriously weirding me out.

Jesus fucking Christ I can't wait to walk on a planet without needing a spacesuit.

Chapter 2

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 702**

My life for the past five days, while my ribs heal up, has been frighteningly like when I was stuck on Mars, ie: sitting on my ass watching TV. Of course the major difference is I'm watching TV shows that were filmed in _this_ century, instead of Lewis' endless supply of 70's crap. I'm sticking mostly to documentaries at the moment. I'm in no mood to feel sad watching a drama, and I super really do not want to laugh while my ribs are still healing.

Side Note: You may be wondering why I didn't just listen and watch my own music and shows while I was on Mars. Well, the reason why was because I left _my_ datastick in my cabin. I was going down to Mars to work my ass off for thirty sols. I thought I was going to be _too busy_ to lay back and watch TV. The irony was not lost on me during my long periods of downtime sitting in the Hab watching _Three's Company._

Right now I'm sharing a cabin with Martinez. We're in Beck's, while Beck is with Johansen since Martinez and I's quarters are unlivable at the moment. I'm glad he and Beth hooked up like I was hoping they would. I'm sure Commander Lewis gave them a bit of shit about it, but given the length of the mission the unresolved sexual tension would have just gotten annoying after a while. Once Beck allows me to start moving around again I'm going to take a crack at fixing that piping between our walls. The _Hermes_ has been without a ship's engineer for _way_ too long. I know Johansen is my backup for those duties, but between being the ship's sysop and the reactor tech, I can't blame her for putting cabin repairs low on her priorities.

In other news, I think I'm finally coming down from the emotional high of being rescued. Or maybe Beck is cutting back on my Vicodin. Anyway I'm losing the fun floating sensation that came with the realization that all the insane plans that had to come together for my rescue actually _worked._ I have to be luckiest asshole in space since the crew of Apollo 13 had their little accident on the way to the Moon.

Now I have to start thinking about what to do with the rest of my life once we get back to Earth. Seriously, what the hell do you do to top spending a year and a half alone on Mars, and then be successfully rescued? I mean, what did Neil Armstrong do after going to the Moon?

Oh, yeah. He hawked cars for Chrysler. And was a professor of aeronautical engineering, which was also cool.

Chapter 3

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 705**

Ate the last of the steak today. Guess I'm back to being a vegetarian until we get home. I don't mind too much. My stomach has finally settled enough that I can be _full_ without feeling like my intestines were going to burst. Those damned protein bars are already starting to get really boring though.

Fuck it, I can take it. I ate potatoes for a year. At least the protein bars have chocolate flavoring.

After I was reduced to an all potato diet, I spent entirely too much time fantasizing about what foods I'd eat when I finally got home. It was a pointless exercise, and probably counted as self-torture, but in a weird sorta way it kept me motivated to continue my survival efforts. Instead of a carrot and a stick to keep me going it was meat and a stick. Or maybe meat _on_ a stick. Steak on a Stake was one of my favorite things to eat at the Michigan RenFaire back when I was a kid.

I swear to God, when I get on the ground I'm going to order the greasiest, bacon and cheese slathered burger in the fucking world.

No fries though.

Seriously, I am _done_ with all potato products. I'm not touching anything even remotely _resembling_ a root vegetable for the rest of my life. I don't even want to play with a Mr. Potato Head.

Chapter 4

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 710**

I've been moving around more. Beck was satisfied enough with the state of my health that he's allowed me to start walking without supervision, though I'm still stuck in the habitation segment of the _Hermes'_ carousel. 0.3G or not, he and Lewis don't want me climbing ladders to the hub to transit to the other segments, a necessity since for safety reasons they aren't directly connected into a single pressure vessel, until I'm more healed up. It's making me a bit stir crazy, I'll admit. Together the pressurized areas of the _Hermes_ aren't that much bigger than the Hab back on Mars, so I'm stuck in ¼ of _that_ until further notice.

In other news I celebrated Christmas today. Sorta. I know it's June, but if this had been a normal mission then we would have celebrated the holiday while in transit back to Earth, so NASA made sure to include Christmas presents in our personal items weight allotment. Actually everyone else celebrated the holiday when _Hermes_ left Mars the first time, but as you can imagine it was a pretty sorry affair, what with me being presumed dead and all. They left my own present unopened for obvious reasons, but Beck and Lewis presented it to me today as a celebration for my health milestone.

It was a hand knitted sweater from my mom, because (as the note in the box put it) "Space is cold."

I'm gonna wear that sucker every day until we get back.

Speaking of clothes, do you have any idea how nice it is to wear clean underwear? Hell, clean _anything_? Our pre-supply clothing allotment covered a 31 day surface mission. Which meant I was given a whopping fifteen sets of underwear and pairs of socks for surface ops, plus three sets of shirts and pants, assuming the latter were changed every ten days. I could wear Martinez and Vogel's clothes as well, even if they didn't fit great, but NASA didn't include a clothes washer in the Hab for obvious reasons, and things got seriously skanky even with me trying to scrub clothes in a sample container with hot water from the microwave. I couldn't even use soap when I washed them, because I had to ration that out for my personal hygiene.

Since I got back up to _Hermes_ I've been wearing the clothes that I was supposed to wear when the original mission profile said we'd be heading back to Earth after a nice, normal 31 sol ground mission. Which not incidentally means I'm the only one wearing clothes that haven't been washed six jillion times in the _Hermes'_ washing machine.

Which we no longer have soap for.

Needless to say I'm ahead of pretty much everyone else sartorially at this point. But that's not the worst of it. At least as a guy I don't have to worry about certain things that I'm sure have been on Commander Lewis and Johanssen's mind. Like I said, _Iris 2_ had food and _only_ food aboard when it when it rendezvoused with _Hermes_. I haven't asked what the hell those two are doing to compensate and I ain't gonna. After surviving so long on Mars, it'd be embarrassing to get spaced by Lewis for asking about the ship's tampon supply.

Actually, come to think of it, that would go for birth control as well. Lewis is faithful to her husband I'm pretty sure, but Johanssen had to have run out of pills months ago. I hope to hell she and Beck are being careful. I mean presumably they're keeping track, but low gravity can screw a woman's period like it throws almost every other bodily function out of whack. It's not like NASA is going to send a supply of condoms along for the mission just in case.

Then again, it is NASA. They prepare for everything.

Just checked the ship's online inventory. Nope. No condoms, and definitely no more tampons.

I need to seriously stop thinking about this.

Chapter 5

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DATE 715**

Okay, I broke down and asked Beck. Turns out Johanssen and Lewis both had IUD's installed that are good for at least five years, a couple of months before launch. So neither of them need to worry about getting pregnant or having periods until we get back. Unless we get sucked into a wormhole and visit the Planet of the Apes, the Series for at least three seasons.

They had some seriously fucking weird shows in the 70's. I mean, a bunch of guys in rubber ape masks instead of CGI? _Sheesh._ On the plus side, I now know why my parents thought Professor Bobo on MST3K was so hilarious.

On a more serious subject, I have been reminded by the mission psychology team that I have been dancing around talking about something. Mostly because I didn't feel like talking about it at all. The question being: "Did I have suicidal thoughts at any point during my period on Mars?"

Gee, ya _think_?

Look, re-reading my log entries from my time on Mars, you might get the impression that I'm a bit of a Pollyanna. I was writing down my thoughts more or less stream of consciousness, but I'll admit to doing some editing in brain before typing it all in. Yeah, I thought about it. That first evening when I started taking inventory of everything I'd have to do to stay alive, my side aching from the self-surgery was one low point. The worst though was right after losing the potato farm. I had worked so damned hard on that thing, and I knew then that any attempt by NASA to build a resupply probe would now be a desperate rush job, and might not make it. Honestly, when Venkat broke down and told me the probe had a launch failure, that was just the icing on the cake. By that point I wasn't so much suicidal as numb.

But that was it really. Part of it is that I'm an engineer. I fix problems. So long as I had something occupy my brain, and I always had _something_ , even if it was routine Hab maintenance, I could keep going, one problem at a time. Hell, even killing myself was an engineering problem, but one I was more than willing to put off until I faced some other problem I just couldn't fix.

So long as I had some hope, be it meeting the Ares 4 crew at Schiaparelli, getting a resupply probe to my location, or even that loony launch in the remains of the Ares 4 MAV, I could keep going. If the MAV's engines had failed to ignite, or the _Hermes_ missed the rendezvous for some reason, yeah, then I would have done something really permanent to myself. But until then I was determined to keep going, if for no other reason than I really didn't want to put my parents through the same pain that they'd experienced once already.

Enough about that. I lived through it, and I'm sure as fuck never going to go back to Mars to experience it again. I intend to live to a ripe old age so I can bitch to my descendants how easy they've got it compared to the old days.

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

Mark finds out just what the rest of the crew gave up, for the chance to rescue him.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 725**

I am so _fucking furious_ right now I'm having a hard time typing it all in. I wanna punch my fist into a wall, but I know if I did that I'd just make more work for Beck, I gotta get all of this on the page though, so I can look at it, in case I forget to be mad for some reason.

 _Deep breath._

Okay, the day actually started out great. After yet another exam _,_ Dr. Bossy Beck _finally_ gave me permission to me move around the rest of _Hermes._ As soon as he gave me the word, I climbed up the ladder and did a happy little dance in the zero-g section of the hub. Then immediately regretted it as my inner ear started bouncing like a fucking pinball. Once I was sure my lunch was going to stay put I went over to the control room just because I could.

Commander Lewis was there, typing up the daily mission status report, correlating items concerning the ship's health that NASA couldn't monitor directly, and also attaching all the results from the science experiments that the crew had run the day before. Once it was all together she'd send it in the daily data dump over to Mission Control, same as they'd send us our marching orders for the next day around the same time. I hung around near the hatch until she saved the file, and she waved me over.

"How are you feeling, Watney?" she asked.

"Beck is letting me move around and use the ladders," I replied. "I'm glad. I was starting to go stir crazy in my room. Did you know Martinez farts in his sleep? I think he was saving up beans in his colon before we left Earth, just in case he needed to really gross us out."

"I'll make a note of it," Lewis said, chuckling a little. Despite the weird obsession with 70's sitcoms, Lewis is probably the most low-key member of our team, and a hard one to make laugh. She's always taken her responsibilities as mission commander incredibly seriously, and does her best to treat everyone with an even hand. Even her resident class clown, me. I guess I'm the Horshack to her Mr. Kotter or something.

Oh, _God_ I've got to watch more 21st century videos.

Anyway, I went on, "Any word on when I'll be put back to work with ship's maintenance and my science schedule? I don't want Beck screwing around any more with my poor plants."

"If you can move around now to the science labs, I don't see any reason why you can't take up your experiment schedule again," Lewis said. "As for maintenance, I want your ribs fully healed up before you start work on that. Interior duties only. Beck and Vogel can handle any required EVA's. NASA and I both want you to avoid any unnecessary risks during the trip back to Earth."

"Fine by me," I said. "I'll be happy to stay inside, just so long as we get back home in one piece. I don't want to ever wear a spacesuit again in my life if I can help it. I did enough EVA's on Mars that I'm probably going to hold the Guinness World Record until the Sun burns out."

That got another chuckle out of her. "What do you think you'll do when you get back?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Eat food that isn't potatoes or protein bars. Maybe get a job as a teacher. Mom and Dad were contacted by the University of Chicago. They said I can name whatever professorship I want, and I can have it."

"So you're done with NASA?" Lewis asked.

"I"m done with space _period,"_ I said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that NASA worked so hard to rescue me, but my ass is going to stay on a nice, safe planet with normal gravity, food I can eat, and air that won't kill me if I walk outside."

"Maybe you can write a book," she suggested. "I was reading your logs. You actually went into a lot of detail about your efforts to survive. People would be interested in reading about that."

"Yeah, maybe," I said, thinking about how many _fucks_ I'd written down in those logs. "I'd have to do a lot of editing before I'd send it to a publisher though."

"Keep it as it is," Lewis said. "It's very _you_ , Mark."

"What, a foul mouthed asshole?"

"An honest asshole," she said. "Yes, you've got a dirty mouth, Mark. Sometimes it's made me uncomfortable, but I always knew you were completely upfront with me about anything we discussed."

"Thanks," I mumbled. Talk about a backhanded compliment! To change the subject, I asked, "So what are you going to do? I mean after you've had some downtime. Kinda hard to top any kind of mission after this one."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I'm like you. I'm done with space, and the military. I'll probably get a job as a consultant, or maybe a teacher like you're considering."

"Wait, what?" I asked. "You're going to resign your commission?" I felt my stomach knot up. Lewis loved being an astronaut, but she was even prouder of being a Navy commander. For her to resign just because of one lousy accident was just fucking _wrong._ "You can't do that," I exclaimed. "Jesus Christ, what happened to me on Mars was an _accident_. You weren't responsible for it, I told you that already!"

"I'm not resigning because of that, Mark," she replied. "I've got other reasons."

"What other reasons?" I demanded. "Christ, you're a _hero_. You pulled off the greatest rescue mission in NASA history. Once Teddy Saunders retires you could be made head of the agency!"

"NASA isn't going to make me the head of anything," Lewis said. She rubbed her forehead briefly, as if she was in pain. "I was going to drop this on you after we got back to Earth and you had some time to recuperate, but I guess I should tell you now."

"Tell me what?" I said.

"Mark, the original mission for _Hermes_ was to just come home, while JPL built a second supply mission for you, to be sent on the _Taiyang Shen_ booster. It would have been a last-ditch effort. The _Iris 2_ wouldn't even have had a landing system. They were hoping enough supplies would survive a crash landing that you could make it until the _Ares 4_ crew arrived," she explained to me. "NASA decided it was better to for one astronaut to be placed at high risk, rather than place all of us at a lower risk with the extended mission to swing back towards Mars to pick you up."

"I guess that makes sense," I said. "What changed their minds?"

"They didn't. We forced their hand. Someone managed to slip Rich Purnell's course into an email sent to Vogel, with all the details of the maneuver and also the reasons why NASA decided against it. This person thought we should have the right to decide whether to place our own lives at risk, in order to give you a better chance to survive."

Right then Lewis looked more grim than I'd ever seen her. "Vogel brought it to my attention. I knew it had a much better chance at rescuing you successfully than depending on the _Iris 2_ reaching you. So I discussed it with the rest of the crew, and we made the decision together that we would execute the Rich Purnell maneuver. That forced NASA to change the _Iris 2_ mission to be a resupply probe for _Hermes_. Publically they claimed the decision was from NASA's leadership. In truth we committed mutiny. However we're praised when we get back, no one on this crew is going into space ever again." She smiled sadly. "The best I can hope for is some desk job with an impressive title and no responsibilities. Given my actions, I also wouldn't be comfortable in a Navy command. I think the private sector is the best place for me."

"Let me see if I've got this straight," I said slowly. "You, and everyone on this crew, willingly _trashed_ their futures with NASA for the sake of my sorry ass? Goddamnit Lewis, I _know_ how much your Navy career meant to you. You just threw it all away on some half-baked hope that you'd be able to pick me up?"

"Not half-baked," she replied, frowning. "If I'd thought the maneuver wouldn't work, or that the second probe had a better chance to reach you, I would have never brought it to the others' attention. As it was, I thought it had much higher chance of success than crash landing _Iris_ into Mars."

"What the hell would you have done if _Iris_ had missed the _Hermes_?" I demanded. "What the fuck would have happened if you lost life support, or the reactor, or the water reclaimer while you were on your way to pick me up?"

"We would have died," Lewis said flatly. "And we would have died knowing that we did everything we could to save you, rather than just come home with our tails between our legs, hoping that _Ares 4_ would reach you in time."

I was so angry I pushed myself back and forth across the tiny control room as I talked, literally bouncing off the walls. "You guys are _heroes_. You should be looking forward to fucking _parades_. Instead Director Saunders is going slam the door in your faces even while he's telling the world what a great job you did, the prick."

"You're right," Lewis said, her tone growing hard. "But we all made this decision with our eyes wide open, Watney. _Respect that._ "

Those last words stopped me short. _Respect_ is a really important word for Commander Lewis. She gave it to us, working with a bunch of quirky PhD's wearing astronaut uniforms, that didn't always follow the military protocol she was used to. In turn we gave it to her, trusting that when she made a decision that affected the whole crew, it would be the right one. It was at the core of what made her _Commander Lewis, USN_ and not just _Melissa Lewis, NASA Astronaut._

"All right," I said, trying to calm down. "You, all of you, made this decision to rescue me. I'll respect that. But I'm sure as fuck not going to respect NASA if they sink your careers. And I'm going to tell Teddy Saunders what an asshole he is to his face, even if I have to do it behind a closed door."

"Fair enough," Lewis replied, her tone returning to normal. "Thank you, Mark."

I knew a dismissal when I heard it, so I kinda ducked my head and headed back down to my bunkroom. I've been in here ever since, stewing.

Okay, fine. If the crew wanted to toss their careers at NASA into the airlock for the sake of one nerdy botanist, that's okay. But _goddamn_ it burns me. Look, it's not like I'd rather be dead, but I'm going to have to go on with the rest of my life knowing what they did for me, and knowing there's nothing in whole entire fucking world I could possibly do to pay them back.

Fuck. I gotta think about this.

Chapter 7

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 730**

I am forced to admit that Beck managed to not fuck up my zero-g plant experiments, despite everything that happened on this trip so far. Blowing a hole in the inner door of the VAL and _venting all the air out of the goddamned ship_ is what fucked them up. The only fortunate thing is that the ship remained warm enough during the brief period of vacuum that they didn't actually die, and the soil remained viable.

I've spent the past five days resetting all of my shit for the updated science schedule. I'm sure the botany team monitoring what I do back on Earth were gnashing their teeth at seeing their carefully planned experiments get thrown into the blender, but that hasn't filtered up to me. I'm back with my ferns, grasses, and even some tomatoes. I suspect when the tomatoes become ripe I'm going to become the most popular guy on the ship.

It's nice be back in the Botany Science groove. I'd missed it. Growing potatoes kept my brain engaged, but I was just using stuff I already knew. Doing zero-g and 1/3G botany and making brand new discoveries is what I joined NASA for.

In other news I'm still thinking about what Lewis and the rest of the crew sacrificed, all for the chance to save my ass. It's not like I can go back in time and change what they did, and I wouldn't (seriously, fucking with the time stream _never_ ends well, at least going by every book, TV show, and movie ever made) but I don't know how I can ever thank them either.

Hmm. I wonder if I can get Lewis any original ABBA 8-tracks. She'd like that.

Seriously. The woman has an honest to God 8-track player in her living room. I saw it at the party she held in Houston before we went to the Cape for the launch to _Hermes._ Hell, she probably has a disco ball hanging from the ceiling in her bedroom.

Okay, now I've got an image in mind that you should never _ever_ have of your mission commander. _Gah!_ I'm going back to my science station.

Chapter 8

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 740**

Almost died of radiation poisoning today, but other than that it was pretty boring.

Okay, that requires some explanation. One of the problems with flying in a tin-can in space is that we don't have several miles of atmosphere overhead for protection, especially when the Sun decides to be an asshole and fart solar flares at us. Basically a solar flare is an eruption on the surface of the Sun, blasting off megatons of hydrogen and releasing a buttload of radiation in the process.

Since weight is everything to a space mission, the _Hermes'_ hull isn't thick enough to block the radiation. Instead, when we get a flare warning, we head towards what's called the storm shelter. Actually it's just a section of corridor in the central axis that's surrounded by tanks with the ship's water supply. Several hundred gallons of water turns out to be just what you need to block radiation, so we all have to do is basically sit tight for a few hours until we get the all clear from Mission Control.

As emergencies go, it's pretty routine. We went through it twice on the way to Mars, and had it all down pat. I grabbed my laptop and worked on collating some of my observations from my experiments, Beck read a medical journal on his tablet, Lewis zoned out on some music (wearing her earbuds, thank goodness), and so on. While it's not exactly something to look forward to, it's a break in the routine, which is always welcome given NASA usually schedules our waking time in ten minute increments.

After a while Martinez starting looking thoughtful, staring out the corridor past the red "Certain Death Beyond This Point" line that defined the safety limits of the storm shelter.

"What are you looking at?" I asked, finishing up my notes.

"I was just thinking," he said, and grinned. "If we had any bacon left on board, next flare warning I'd put it on a long rod and see if I could fry it out there, like in a microwave."

"Solar flares are made up of alpha, beta and gamma radiation. They'd be no good for cooking," Johanssen said, probably drawn into the conversation out of outrage for her profession as a reactor tech. "All you'd be doing is sterilizing it, not to mention yourself if you used a metal rod."

"Yeah, yeah," Martinez replied, waving her off. "Still, it would'a been useful if we'd had to go through with the plan to…"

Johanssen glared and cut him off. "We're not going there," she said.

Martinez gave _me_ a funny look for some reason, and backed down. "Okay, sorry," he mumbled.

"What plan?" I asked.

Johanssen turned red. "It's not important."

" _What?_ " I repeated.

She sighed and answered, "If we'd blown the rendezvous with the resupply probe, everyone except me would have committed suicide, to preserve enough food for at least one of us to get home. Except we really wouldn't have enough food still, so I would have eaten everyone's bodies."

 _Jesus._

"Oh," was my brilliant response. Followed by, "I'm sure as hell glad Plan A worked."

"Me too," was all she said. After that, Martinez and I kept our mouths shut.

 **Note to Self:** Find something really fucking nice as a present for Johanssen when we get back. Like, I don't know, a signed Agatha Christie novel, or maybe one of John Lennon's original guitars.

Chapter 9

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 760**

I have spent the past three days pounding my head against the problem of the coolant pipes embedded in the walls of the crew quarters. The shared wall between my quarters and Martinez's is laced with a spiral pattern of 5mm wide PVC pipes, carrying cold water to keep the rooms cool. Unfortunately there's a blockage somewhere in there, preventing the water from flowing. So if you spend any time in the cabins your body will eventually warm the place to a sweltering 37 Celsius, because thermodynamics hates uneven temperature ranges, and also thinks spontaneous human combustion is fucking hilarious.

Since the water not-flowing is part of our potable water supply, pouring Drano into the feed just wasn't an option. I needed to figure out how to basically Roto-Rooter the blockage out of there, using a snake that could fit into the narrow piping.

The obvious solution was wire. We've got plenty of it, about five thousand kilometers throughout the ship, going by the geeky stats you find in _Popular Mechanics_. Unfortunately most of it is being used already, and our fearless commander understandably frowns on the idea of ripping apart the junction boxes for emergency plumbing purposes. Which left the spare cabling that we have for repairs. That was also vetoed by Lewis, since we're already a bit short thanks to other maintenance needs.

Fortunately I did have a ready supply on hand: my EVA suit. Actually it was Martinez's EVA suit, which I'd worn since the Hab decompression incident back on Sol 119 all the way to my MAV launch to intercept _Hermes_. Four hundred and thirty sols of wear had done a number on it. The Beta cloth outer skin was embedded with rusty orange martian dust, no longer the brilliant white it'd started out as, and patched in several spots where I'd had to repair it like a old quilt. The interior lining smells of sweat, space farts, and piss. It was no wonder that Beck had almost gagged when he first took my helmet off. The upper torso was also in several pieces, our good doctor having literally cut me out of it in order not to waste time treating me once I was safely back aboard the _Hermes_.

The remains had been stuffed into what looked like a body bag, normally used to store our ascent/descent suits while we travelled on the route between Earth and Mars and back again. We'd had a spare for it since I'd left my damaged flight suit back on Mars. On the official manifest it was now listed as a critical return item, like the rocks and soil samples we would have been hauling home if the mission had gone as planned. NASA wanted to look it over to see how well it survived all the punishment I gave it, in order to make better suits for future missions. We'd also gotten word that the Smithsonian had dibs to place it in the National Air & Space Museum, next to Neil Armstrong's own EVA suit from the Apollo 11 landing.

With that in mind I began cutting it to pieces with a pair of heavy-duty safety scissors from Beck's medical supplies. Yes, I realize I spend a lot of time vandalizing historic space artifacts, but I wanted my old room back. Martinez snores like a fucking freight train. There's only so much one guy can take.

I got permission from Lewis for this crime against history by not bothering to ask her. I mean I know she'd figure it out once she got around to asking where the wire came from, but compared to digging into critical maintenance supplies it was a relatively minor sin.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of cutting away layers of suit and pulling copper wiring, I had about ten meters to play with, scavenged from the connections between the helmet's HUD interface and the computer running the backpack's life support. The next step was to get into the plumbing access point closest to the crew quarters and shut off the flow of water to the cooling pipes. Then like fixing any stuck pipe I had to drain the water, storing it in a plastic storage crate, which I then dumped back into the water reclamation system. I then spent the most boring and annoying three hours of my life worming that damned wire through the pipes, working around a couple of elbow bends and the long curve of the spiral.

I'd made a little hook on the very tip of the wire, hoping to snag whatever the hell was causing the problem. Once I'd guided the wire as deep into the system as I could, I started drawing it back slowly, hoping to hell it wouldn't get caught on something and break, making all my work moot.

As I'd hoped, when I finished drawing the last of the wire back out, there was a mass of unidentifiable black organic gunk on the end, probably just stuff that had accumulated during the reclamation process and made it past the filters, building up over time. I flicked it into a plastic baggie for Beck to do an analysis on later, if he felt that bored.

After that it was just a matter of sealing up the plumbing again and turning on the water. I heard a hiss as the pipes filled up again, and went to my room to check the situation. A thermocouple I'd attached to the wall confirmed what I felt with the palm of my hand; the wall was cool to the touch, just the right amount to offset the buildup of my body heat once the door was shut. I wasted no time moving all my stuff back to my room, and sending a note to Martinez through the ship's IM client that he could access his own again. Beck would probably be just as happy to stay shacked up with Johanssen I'm betting.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 761**

Here's how Commander Lewis took the news of my repair.

760: 1905, WATNEY: Plumbing problem in the cooling pipes for Cabin Divider C4 has been fixed. Coolant now flowing normally. Noted repair in the daily log.

760: 1907, LEWIS: Good job. Martinez will be happy. How did you clear the blockage?

760: 1910, WATNEY: Salvaged wire from some non-functioning equipment and used it to clear the gunk out.

760: 1912, LEWIS: What equipment did you get it from?

760: 1918, LEWIS: *WHAT* equipment?

760: 1920, WATNEY: My old spacesuit. It's not like it wasn't chopped to pieces already.

760: 1923, LEWIS: NASA wanted the remains for further testing. Whatever is left of the suit is probably useless now.

760: 1927, WATNEY: I was going to go homicidal if I had to sleep with Martinez one more night. Consider it a sacrifice to the cause of inter-crew harmony.

760: 1930, LEWIS: Noted. I'll let you write the apology letters to NASA and the Smithsonian.

760: 1932, WATNEY: Okay, I deserve that.

Chapter 10

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 793**

Y'know what the worst part of going vacation was for me when I was a kid? The trip back. Going to wherever we were going during the summer was a hassle, but it was made better by the knowledge that when we got there fun stuff was going to happen. Leaving wasn't exactly fun, but I was so busy packing my stuff up and hoping I didn't forget anything that it wasn't that bad. But the drive _back_ sucked, because not only was I not on vacation anymore, I also wasn't home either. All I would think about was how nice it would be to sleep in my own bed, but I couldn't because I was stuck in a car for eight hours with my mom and dad and not much to do except stare out the window at the traffic on the interstate.

Right now we are halfway home. The MAV intercept with _Hermes_ was on Sol 549/Mission Day 687. We're due to finish decelerating into Earth orbit on Mission Day 898, or December 21st to non-astronauts. So I'm not on Mars, but I'm not home either, and I gotta admit I'm going a bit stir crazy.

By this point NASA has its shit together when it comes to long duration missions, and they know one of the most dangerous points isn't during the highlight of landing and exploration. It's the trip back, when the crew has finished the major mission objectives, and are cruising back to Earth. That's when boredom and a bit of antsy-ness sets in, as the anticipation of arrival mutates into the genius IQ astronaut equivalent of chanting _Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?_ That's the point where a crew has the biggest chance to fuck up something through carelessness, all the drills and knowledge of the dangers of spaceflight be damned.

So to fight it, we're kept busy. I've got ship's maintenance and my plants to play with. Beck raises his lab mice and monitors the crew's health. Vogel and Martinez conduct astronomical observations. Johanssen minds the ship's reactor and computer network, and assists me as needed for repairs, and Lewis keeps an eye on the ship and crew overall, and also does some miscellaneous science duties. Basically NASA tries to keep our brains engaged all day, so we don't get bored and lazy, sitting around watching the 89th rerun of _Gilligan's Island Meets the Harlem Globetrotters._

(Yeah, that exists. I may have left Lewis' entertainment data stick on Mars, but I'll never be able to erase the horror of watching it from my brain.)

Honestly, Lewis has it the worst of us. If we'd had a normal mission she would have been kept busy analyzing five hundred kilos of Martian rock and soil samples during the trip back. All she has now is the contingency sample we immediately took when we first arrived on Mars and stored in the _Ares 3_ MAV in case we (ahem) had to abort the mission unexpectedly. Ten measly kilos of rock and dirt that she's been studying the shit out of for the last nine months. NASA's science team have found other things for her to do, but there isn't much geology involved at this point, which is what she trained for.

So we're all stuck together in the car. We can't step outside for a walk. And all we've got to do is homework or stare out the window at, well, _nothing._

 _Are we there yet?_


	2. Chapter 2

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 800**

Ah, Media Relations. The best part of being in the space program, said no astronaut ever. Most us who go into space have to deal with it at some point or another, but since I was the lowest ranked member of the crew, and had the most boring science goals (grow ferns in Martian soil! Ohhhh!) I didn't have to talk with reporters much. Most of that fell on Lewis as the mission's commander, and a bit on Vogel, since he was the first German astronaut to go to Mars.

Not anymore!

Apparently ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, SKY News, ABC again (Australian version), every news outlet still publishing on dead trees (both of them), and about half a billion websites and YouTubers want to have a deep personal chat with your's truly. Annie Montrose back in Houston has been running interference for me, but now that we're closing the distance to Earth and the lightspeed lag is diminishing, she's running out of excuses to avoid showing me on camera. I'm scheduled to do a video press conference with the NASA press pool tomorrow at about 10am Houston time. Can't see how this could possibly go wrong. (That was sarcasm by the way.)

Anyway, Montrose sent a very long list of shit that I should _not_ do during the interview, which can be boiled down to "No foul language, don't say anything that might affect the next budget cycle with Congress, and try not to scratch your balls on camera." Or as she put it in a helpful P.S., "If you fuck this up I will personally stuff a Falcon 9 up your asshole and shoot you back to Mars." I knew I had a good reason to like her.

Wish me luck!

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 801**

Well, that could have gone better…

By 9:45 am Houston time I was showered, shaved, dressed, and sitting in the ship's rec with Commander Lewis, sitting on the couch in front of the camera we've got there for media stuff and the rare video conference with Mission Control. 9:55 am Johanssen went through the usual rigmarole of syncing our video feed with Houston so we could see and hear each other talking. 10:00 am we went live, with Montrose pointing to reporters with questions, them asking the questions, and then waiting two minutes to receive the response from me.

It went pretty well, up to a point. Most of them were easy softballs: "How's it feel to be coming home?" ("Great!") "What's the first thing you'll do when you get back?" ("Kiss the tarmac. Then wipe my lips clean and order a cheeseburger.") Big laugh from the reporters. "Do you think we should keep sending people instead of just robots to other planets?" ("Yeah, just not me.") Another laugh. "Are you looking forward to spending Christmas with your family?" ("You bet. Best present I could ask for.") And so on.

I could see Montrose smiling happily as the questions continued, apparently pleased by my performance. Then things started going downhill...

"What did you think when you were told the crew weren't informed of your survival at first?" asked the lady from CNN.

"I was angry," I admitted. "Of course you saw that in my response when I was told. I thought it was stupid to keep them in the dark. Commander Lewis and the rest of the crew aren't kids, they deserved to know. Plenty of people on ground at Houston thought it was stupid as well. That's one of the reasons they sneaked Lewis the info about the flyby after it was originally turned down."

 _Whoops._

The really fun part of an interview with a minute-long lightspeed delay, is that you have plenty of time to contemplate your fuckup after the words leave your mouth. Lewis had too much self-control to either speak or visibly wince, but I knew she knew what the reporter's reaction was going to be just by the way her shoulders tensed up.

We sat there together in painful silence for that endless minute, watching as the gathered reporters listened to my answer, their faces turning from Listening Carefully, to Surprised, and then finally to Well Fuck Me Raw with a side order We Just Hit the Jackpot. The press room was suddenly filled people talking to each, as Annie Montrose's eyes narrowed in a way that told me she really wished she could publically cut loose with enough F-bombs to level a small, verbally uptight country.

A reporter from CBS managed to shout over the crowd, "Annie, just to clarify what Mark Watney said, did NASA officials originally decide to not inform the crew of the _Hermes_ that that the Mars Flyby option was available? If so, may we know why?"

"I can't discuss that matter at this time," Montrose said sharply.

Another reporter asked, "We know that the decision to alter the plan to launch the _Iris 2_ aboard the _Tiyang Shen_ as a supply probe for Watney to one for the crew of the _Hermes_ was made very late before launch. Was the decision made before or _after_ the _Hermes_ altered course to perform the so-called Rich Purnell Maneuver?"

"I can't discuss that," she repeated.

"Commander Lewis, can you clarify the timeline of events for us?"

"No, she _can't_ ," Montrose snapped. "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to cut this short. Thank you all for coming."

At that point the video feed from Houston was killed, and Johanssen called from the control room to report, "Video and audio to Houston is offline."

"Thank you, Johanssen," Lewis said, the first words she'd uttered since greeting the reporters at the start of the press conference. Then she turned to me, looking like she couldn't decide whether to tear me a new asshole, or send me to my room without dinner. Finally she settled for a very tired sounding, " _Mark._ "

At that point I think I would have preferred being locked in a closet with Montrose than hear Lewis' dismay. "I'm sorry, Commander. I really, _really_ fucked up," I admitted.

"Yes, you did," Lewis said flatly. Then she gave me a kinda lopsided smile. "As a military officer, I understand the need to compartmentalize information. But as an astronaut and a scientist, I also hate keeping secrets. This was going to come out in the open eventually, Mark. NASA has learned the hard way with Apollo 1, _Challenger,_ and _Columbia_ about not giving hard facts the attention they deserve. That said, I rather wish the information could have been distributed a bit more… _diplomatically._ "

"I'm not so good at diplomacy," I said. "And I might point out that Montrose didn't _say_ we shouldn't discuss it."

"She didn't think you _knew,_ Mark," Lewis said.

"Yeah," I said. Then I stood up. "Um, I think I'll go to room for a while."

"You do that," Lewis agreed. "I'll stay here. I suspect I'm going to have a long discussion with Venkat Kapoor and Teddy Saunders shortly."

I said goodbye to her and slunk back to my cabin, where I've been hiding ever since.

Well, it wasn't like any of us wanted to go back to space anyway...

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 805**

Aside from our daily marching orders and private emails from friends and family in the daily data dump, we also get uploads for major news articles that Mission Control thinks we might find interesting. Wanna guess what most of them have been about the past few days?

Didn't think so.

As much as I wanted to avoid talking to Lewis after she got chewed out by Kapoor and Sanders, the _Hermes_ is just too small to pull that off. Besides, the shrinks at NASA demand we eat at least one meal together each day to maintain crew cohesion, which is usually dinner, even if it is just the same damned protein bars we've all been eating for the past hundred days. So I had to face her eventually.

But, as it turned out, things weren't that bad. If anything Lewis was relieved at not having to maintain the charade that the Rich Purnell Maneuver has been NASA's plan all along, and so were back and Johanssen. Martinez actually thought it was hilarious, and has downloaded and saved the best of the memes that were being generated by the look on my face, as I was waiting for the press conference's reaction after I cut loose with that bombshell. Vogel, German to the core, was the most offended by my slip up.

Honestly, now that I think about it, Vogel must play up the German card to tweak all the Americans on the crew. I _know_ he's got a sense of humor in that big brain of his. In a moment of sheer entertainment desperation I went through the files on his laptop back on Mars, figuring if he did have anything on there I could at least click on the English subtitles. Turns out he's a big fan of something called _Alarm für Cobra 11,_ which is sorta like _CHiPs_ with more explosions (and no damned subtitles).

Seriously, there were a _lot_ of explosions in that series. Like Michael Bay levels of explosions.

No wonder he became a chemist. Making things go boom must have been a lifelong dream.

Anyway, the storm over my slipup seems to be confined to Earth for now. Lucky me. Can't imagine Teddy Sanders is having much fun though, the asshole. I'll weep for him when we get back.

 _Nah!_

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 827**

Of all the dumbass… _Sigh._

As we get closer to Earth, NASA is prepping to receive us when we arrive. Normal procedure is to first dock with the Shipyard, or rather the Orbital Ship Integration Complex (OSIC), where all the parts of the _Hermes_ were put together after being launched into orbit, and also where it goes through its overhaul after every mission. Once we're docked it takes about a day to shut down all the systems, including life support and the reactor, and hook _Hermes_ up to the station's umbilicals to take up the load while it's refurbished. Once that's done we take an orbital vehicle back to a landing at Cape Kennedy and get to spend a week or so being checked out by NASA's doctors as we make the transition from the Martian gravity maintained on the _Hermes_ to Earth normal 1g.

Now on the trip from OSIC back to the Cape we're required to wear pressurized flight suits in case of unexpected cabin depressurization (AKA "Oh, _shit!_ There's a hole in the ship!"). Ever since the _Challenger_ disaster that's simply non-negotiable.

We wore the same suits on the launch to _Hermes,_ the landing in the MDC, and the launch in the MAV, which we've been carting around this whole time on the ship. Except of course that _my_ flight suit is sitting back in the remains of the Hab on Mars, still sporting a bigass hole in the side where I got speared by the antenna array.

The solution to this is pretty obvious: Just send up a new flight suit! Which is what NASA had in mind. Except there's one teeny, ten fingered problem: The gloves.

Flight suits come in three sizes: Petite, Average, Tall. That gives enough range that a suit can be found to fit pretty much any astronaut with a bit of adjusting. In the 1960's suits were basically custom made to each astronaut, and not expected to last more than one mission. With the coming of the Space Shuttle, EVA suits were made from interchangeable parts allowing for it fit a variety of body sizes. Those suits lasted for over fifty years, until the end of the original ISS's lifespan. Today's suits are similar. However, the one thing common to all suits of all eras is that the gloves _have_ to be custom made. They're the most important part of the suit, and are designed to fit closely to an astronaut's hand. Even with well fitting gloves EVA's can be murder on your fingers. Just grabbing objects requires far more effort than it does in a standard Earth atmosphere, because your hand is basically stuck in a thick balloon inflated to 4 and half pounds of pressure per square inch, and fine dexterity jobs in even modern suits is difficult. NASA can't just send up a generic pair for me to use on the way down. If there was an emergency that required me to have a handhold or manipulate tools I'd be screwed.

"Ah," you say, "but can't you just use the gloves from your surface operations suit?" Well, I would, except NASA is understandably a little leery of making me use gloves that I've worn on nearly daily EVA's for over five hundred sols. It's a fucking miracle that they didn't lose seal integrity during that time, especially at the rubberized fingertips where most of the wear was occurring. That's not something I could have gotten away with repairing using resin or duct tape.

"But surely, Mark old boy, when they made your original gloves they would have taken measurements! Those have to by lying around somewhere at JPL. NASA never throws _any_ records out."

Yes, they've got my original measurements, but those were for Mark Watney 1.0. Remember, I was on ¾ rations for over five hundred sols, and I lost over thirty-five kilos of weight during that time period. I was, almost literally, half the man I used to be by the time I made it back aboard the _Hermes._ I've gained a lot of it back over the past few months, but the overall experience has changed my body's shape severely. My hands went from normal, to pretty skeletal looking things with knobby knuckles and visible tendons, and back to something approaching normal again, but _different_ from where they started. I have to get remeasured for the gloves again to get a pair that fit properly. Which is a problem.

The way NASA does it is to make a mold of the astronaut's hand with silicone, create a duplicate of the hand's shape using the mold, and then use that as a base to build the glove around so it fits perfectly. The problem is that I'm still a few million miles from Earth and the lab where they make the molds. So, no mold, no gloves.

I can, _maybe,_ make do with my Mars EVA suit gloves. But I don't like the idea, and neither does Commander Lewis or the nannies at NASA. The alternative would be to somehow make the mold at the OSIC dock, shuttle that down to Earth with my crewmates, leaving me to wait for the next flight up to the station with my new gloves aboard, which could take weeks, or potentially _months,_ and would seriously fucking suck on toast.

I gotta think about this.


	3. Chapter 3

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 830**

Remember how I talked a lot about all the smart people at NASA when they were helping me (in between the loss of vital communications equipment) figure to how to survive? Well, they came through again. I am _not_ going to have to sit on my ass while at the OSIC waiting to be measured, have gloves made, and then shipped up to me. They'll be waiting for me on arrival, and it's all thanks to a big fucking truckload of Science.

Or rather a small box of Science about a half meter on each side, known as the ship's Multipurpose Manufacturing Machine (M3 to the nerds at JPL who built it.) Basically it's a MakerBot like your dad fooled around with when they started becoming a thing twenty years back, except built to NASA standards. Since being in transit between Mars and Earth is a really shitty time to find out you don't have the washer or bolt you need to fix something, _Hermes_ was equipped with the M3 to construct parts as needed, in case we ran out of spares, or needed something unique for a special project.

Unlike the Makers you give the kids at Christmas these days, it doesn't just 3D print little toys out plastic. It works with plastic, metal, and can even shape ceramics a little. Compared to a dedicated assembly line it's woefully inefficient. You could build your own desktop computer using it, but you'd have to do final assembly of the components yourself, and it would cost at least twice as much as buying a conventionally manufactured model. Nevertheless it's been vital in maintaining the _Hermes'_ systems during its extended mission, and now it's going to be vital for me getting my damned new gloves.

How? Well, to cut stuff like metals, it doesn't use a blowtorch or a water saw, it uses _lasers_. Mostly during the final polishing process, but they're there. They're powerful enough that the M3 has to have multiple safeguards built into it to ensure that any mistakes in programming a build doesn't result in zapping a hole in the unit, and potentially the _Hermes'_ hull.

Which makes me slightly nervous, because now I'm going to use them to scan my hands.

Okay, it's not _that_ dangerous. The techs at JPL are putting together a software patch for the M3 that's going to dial the power on the cutting laser way down to just above what you'd get on your average laser pointer. After a few rounds of testing to make sure that no, it's not going to cut my arm off at the wrist, all I have to do is stick my hand into the box and get it scanned.

On the plus side, if it _does_ cut my hand off, we can use it to build me a cool bionic replacement. Just like Steve Austin.

Wish me luck!

Seriously, wish me luck. I don't want to do the Steve Austin thing at all. I'd look stupid running and jumping in slow motion all the time.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 835**

After several days of back and forth with Bruce Ng's people at JPL, the software update for the M3 was uploaded, and we tested the lasers at "full" power by trying to set a piece of tissue paper on fire. As was hoped, absolutely nothing happened. While that was going on I used the directions they sent up to breadboard together a light sensor that would record the bounce back of the lasers against my skin. It took another day to install and test the sensor, and then some fiddling to insert a frame in the box that would keep my hand perfectly still when the scan commenced.

I'll admit I was still a little nervous when I slipped on a pair of protective goggles and stuck my bare hand in the open box. But I sat still and waited as Johanssen cranked up the M3 to start the scan.

Which was when the M3 let out an upset beep and refused to function.

It turned out to be a really stupid error. With all the work to make sure the laser was safe to use, JPL forgot one little detail. For obvious safety reasons, the M3 is programmed not to activate if the _damned door is open._

It was just a little detail, but everyone on the ground and up on _Hermes_ completely failed to think about it. While it's not exactly something along the lines of "We forgot to check the voltage of the cryo tank stirrers when we tested them, before installing them in the Service Module," or "I'm sure using the same airlock each day won't stress the Hab canvas too much," levels of stupidity, it was an obvious error that should have been caught during the planning stages.

The fix was simple. JPL's programmers looked at the problem and updated the software once again, we tested it _again_ , and everyone double and triple checked the resulting data to make sure the reports the M3 was sending matched reality. After that it took all of five minutes to scan each of my hands, and then download the results back to Houston so the manufacturer could start making my new gloves.

Still, it was a dumb little error that was only caught because the M3's safety interlocks were doing their job. JPL missed it. I missed it. Johanssen missed it. Lewis and Mission control both missed all of us missing it. Just a dumb little mistake which didn't really mean anything. Except the next time it might be a dumb little mistake with seriously lethal consequences.

I know we're tired up here. The protein bars are dull, no one has clean clothes, we are fucking _sick_ of being in space, and we all want to be home already. Bruce Ng and a lot of other people down on the ground haven't had a vacation in over three years as they guide _Hermes_ back to Earth, and I can only imagine the exhaustion they're feeling right now.

It's late and I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow I'm pulling out the breadboarded sensor and upload the original software so the M3 will be able to do its normal job. Then I'm going to test the shit out of it to make sure I don't make another mistake. I want to rest first though.

We are so close to home now that I can almost taste it. The Earth is visible to the naked eye as a bright star now when I look out the observation cupola. In a week or two I'll be able to make out the continents and seas.

But right now I'm terrified that the universe it going to yank the rug out from under us one last time, and we aren't going to make it.


	4. Chapter 4

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 867**

Big day today. We're exactly sixty days out from Earth, and it's time to do the turnover maneuver to slow down enough for EOI, or Earth Orbit Insertion. Normally this would be done over thirty days from now, but with the enormous amount of velocity we've picked up from the Rich Purnell Maneuver, we have to start it early.

It's kind of a pain in the ass. Everything in _Hermes'_ centrifugehas to be secured for zero-g, since we have to stop rotation, as Martinez turns the ship around ass backwards to fire the ion engine in the direction of Earth to kill our velocity. Turns out spinning a ship around a giant gyroscope isn't the easiest thing in the world, so it's safer if it's stopped.

Of course stopping it isn't easy either. Newton's Second Law means that when we put the brakes on the centrifuge, its velocity is transferred to the _Hermes'_ central hull, which will then start spinning. To counteract that, Martinez has to use the ship's thrusters to cancel out the ship's need to spin. That's why it was critical to save that remaining 20% of thruster fuel when the ship intercepted the MAV, requiring our fearless commander to come up with the stunt with the bomb and the airlock door.

Once we're going tail first towards Earth and turn the ion engine back on, the centrifuge will be spun up again and we'll start slowing down. Even then we're going to have to dip a little into the Earth's atmosphere to complete EOI around the planet. It's a shitload of complicated maneuvers, which makes me glad all I have to worry about these days is plants.

I'm trying to not shit my pants over this. It's a perfectly routine maneuver that the _Hermes_ has done a dozen times before in both testing and during the Ares 1 and 2 missions. Every system on the _Hermes_ has been working perfectly fine since that little incident with the M3. The worst problem we've had is having to turn off some of the lights because Johanssen had dial the reactor back a bit more because of that pitting problem on the reactor's radiators.

My brain knows everything is going to be okay. It's just my imagination that's being a nervous nelly. I suppose I could ask Beck for a dose of Temazepam to get through this, except that would mean telling him _why,_ which would obligate him to make a report to Dr. Shields back in Houston _,_ which would mean…

What? I'd get kicked off the flight rotation for the next mission? Like I fucking _want_ to go back in space?

Okay, I'll talk to Beck. No reason to be an idiot about this. Every day the Earth is bigger in the window. We're almost home.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 869**

The turnover maneuver was completed without a hitch. With Martinez at the controls I'd expected nothing less. After that we spun the centrifuge up again so we could walk on the floors and went back to our never ending science and ship maintenance duties. I knew I didn't have anything to worry about. I just needed the Temazepam to help me believe that.

Fortunately Beck didn't give me any shit about it. "I'm a little surprised you didn't come to me before for something," he told me, as we floated in the privacy of his cabin/medical suite.

"I'm not trying be manly about it or anything," I admitted. "I just.. I dunno. I thought I was doing all right. I mean we haven't had any real emergencies or anything since I got back aboard. I've got nothing to worry about."

"Jesus, Mark," Beck said. "You were alone on Mars for a year and a half. Your only contact with the outside world was through a bodged together email system using a broken space probe, and you lost that after only a few months. You were almost killed, what, four or five times? You went through more stress than some combat veterans experience, and with a lot less support. It's only natural that it would still be eating at you."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I said. "It's just…. I don't like needing meds like that."

"I know you don't like the idea, but think about it. This," Beck tapped the Temazepam bottle in his hand, "isn't a crutch, and it isn't a cheat. It doesn't mean you're weak if you take it. It just means you have a problem, and you need help. Same as if you had an infection and needed antibiotics, or a bandaid for a cut. That's all. And if it helps," he added, "you're not the only one on this ship that's taking it."

I could take a guess who he meant, but I didn't say anything out loud. I only had to worry about myself. Commander Lewis worries about _all_ of us. "Okay," I said, taking the little bottle. "Thanks, Beck."

"Just doing my job," he said. "Speaking of which, you haven't been logging your exercise the past few days."

I gave him a glare. It didn't work worth shit. "I've been busy keeping up with keeping the air filters clean," I said. Then I gave in, and said, "Okay, I'll stop slacking."

"Good," he said. "Oh yeah, don't forget to take your vitamins. And eat more fiber!"

I told him to go fuck himself, and we were both laughing when we left his cabin.

So. Moral of the story: I should quit being a moron and talk to people when I feeling stressed out. Because I'm not alone anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 874**

Thanksgiving Day. Our third since the start of the mission. How fucked up is that?

We're celebrating today with a reduced work schedule, only doing critical maintenance and science tasks that require daily observations. After that it's going to be a hearty Thanksgiving meal of… well, more protein bars.

 _Yay._

Martinez has threatened to take a bunch of them and fit them together in the shape of a turkey. Which is the closest we'll probably get until we're back on Earth.

God I miss real food. I've been eating protein bars for so long I think I'm actually _looking forward_ to eating mashed potatoes. That's assuming there's a lot of gravy involved.

Mmm, gravy.

On Thanksgiving Day back on Earth, I'd wake up at my aunt's house in time to watch the Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade (fuck Macy's), then read a book or play on my tablet while my family watched football or the MST3K marathon until dinner time. The we'd stuff ourselves with enough carbs and L-Tryptophan to drop us all on our sorry Thanksgiving asses from the food coma.

God, I miss that. Well, at least we'll get back in time for Christmas dinner.

Assuming nothing else delays us.

 _Sigh._

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 874 (2)**

I just finished Thanksgiving dinner. Which, I am happy to report, was _not_ fucking protein bars. Turns out the freeze dried steak waiting for me when I got back to _Hermes_ wasn't the only surprise food item sent up on the resupply probe. There were also six specially prepared Thanksgiving meal packs, which Lewis and Beck conspired to hide in Beck's refrigerated medical supplies cabinet all this time. Lewis had them brought out this afternoon for our evening meal, much to the delight of Johannsen, Martinez, Vogel and your's truly.

I was seriously shocked. "Are you telling me you held onto these even through the _first_ Thanksgiving you spent traveling back to Mars?"

"I wanted to wait until we had you aboard. It wouldn't have seemed right for us to eat hearty, when we knew you were being reduced to an all potato diet," Lewis told me.

"Geez," I mumbled. That choked me up. I got even more choked up when Martinez led us in a brief prayer before we ate. I've never been particularly religious, and when my aunt did the same thing before eating Thanksgiving in her house, it had seemed like an unnecessary delay before stuffing myself.

It reminded me though, that whatever their beliefs, or lack thereof, there were compassionate people on Earth, and traveling between Mars and Earth, that were willing to put their own needs aside, spend hundreds of millions of dollars, sacrifice so much else, just save my ass. Just because they saw a person who needed help, and wanted to give him a hand.

And for the record, dinner was turkey in gravy sauce, with corn, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. With stuffing instead of mashed potatoes.

 _Belch!_


	6. Chapter 6

**LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 875**

Among the other supplies NASA provide for a mission to maintain morale, is a supply of decorations for various holidays that we can put in the rec and other non-critical spaces. All non-flammable of course.

It's the day after Thanksgiving. I can put up the Christmas decoration if I want. I'd have done the Hanukkah and Kwanzaa ones too, but no one on the Ares 3 mission observes those holidays. We've even got a little plastic Christmas tree to put in the center of the rec's table. I spent a good hour spreading the cheer on the walls of the rec and the hallways. It's nice to see some colors like red and green and ice blue to contrast all the grey metal, white plastic, and beige paint of the _Hermes'_ interior.

Sure (barring complications) we're gonna be back on the ground by the time the holidays roll around, but you can't tell me we don't have reasons to celebrate. A little less than four weeks and we're going to be home.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 875 (2)**

For the record, I am _not_ the one who sat Beck's EVA suit on the rec's couch with a Santa hat on top of its helmet.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 875 (3)**

Martinez swears it wasn't him either. Either Commander Lewis hasn't noticed yet, or she's deliberately ignoring it, in order to give the idiot who put it there a chance to put it back before she starts chewing our asses off.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 875 (4)**

Oops. Lewis noticed. Here's the memo she sent us all on the ship's intranet.

To: All Ares 3 Crew

From: Commander Melissa Lewis

Re: Inappropriate Stowage of Ship's Equipment

As both the holidays and the end of our extended mission approach, I realize a sense of relief, and perhaps outright giddiness, may be overcoming certain members of our crew. However, let me remind you that we must be careful, and not take any action that might endanger the safe operation of Hermes and the health of the Ares 3 mission team. To that end I wish to point out the following:

1\. When not in use, EVA suits and related equipment are to be stored in their protective bags in the Airlock 2 vestibule. They are not snowmen.

2\. Likewise, to prevent critical crew errors, please do not spike the eggnog.

3\. Hermes features the most advanced space life support systems ever designed to keep the ship's interior at a comfortable operating temperature. It does not have, nor does it require, a fireplace.

3a. If you really want hot smores, you can warm them in the microwave.

4\. When disagreeing with any of my orders, please address me in an adult manner. My name is Commander Melissa Lewis, not "Mrs. Scrooge."

5\. I can assure you that Santa will come to visit us at the Crew Recovery Center at Cape Canaveral on December 25th. You don't need to leave cookies and milk in the rec for him.

6\. Happy Holidays. I know finally coming home and seeing our families again will be the best present of all.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 875 (5)**

Wow, Lewis really does have a sense of humor. Who knew?

Also, Beck's suit is stowed properly again. It really wasn't me. It couldn't have been Lewis, and I swear Beck and Johannssen were busy in her cabin when the incident occurred. Which leaves… _Vogel_?

Couldn't have been...

Could it?

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **MISSION DAY 892**

Another milestone: We have crossed the orbit of the Moon. Earth is now the proverbial big blue marble in the window. In seven days we're going to be in orbit around it. We'll be home.

When the Apollo astronauts left the Moon, it only took them three days to home. Right now we're actually travelling a lot slower than they did, because _Hermes'_ ion thrusters can only slow the ship down a max of 3mm per second. Even then we won't be able to lower our velocity to come into a stable orbit without some tricky maneuvering.

Six days from now we'll begin a maneuver called "aerobraking." What that means is that _Hermes_ will dip into the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere, using the air drag against our hull to slow us down, without having to expend fuel. Once we've slowed enough, Martinez will fire the engines bring us back out of the atmosphere and match orbit with the OSIC, where we'll finally dock.

If that sounds dangerous, well it kinda is. If we don't dip down low enough, we'll skip off the atmosphere and fly back into space, with no hope of altering our orbit again to reach Earth before we run out of food. Dip too far, and we'll slow down too much to pop back up to a stable orbit, and we'll just keep falling lower and lower, until we reach the mesosphere and start burning up like _Skylab_.

I'd be terrified if it weren't for Beck's prescription from his Dr. Feelgood cabinet. As it is, I'm keeping myself busy double-checking all the ship's systems so we're prepared for the maneuver.

On a more positive note, we're close enough to Earth that we can spare the bandwidth for real time video conversations with our families. I've been talking to Mom and Dad, telling them how much I'm looking forward to seeing them, and letting them know how much I appreciate their emails both when I was stuck on Mars and after the _Hermes_ rescued me _._ They look a lot better than when I got that first video message after I got rescued. Both of them said how much they love me, and that they'll be there to meet at the Cape when we land. It's so damn good to be able to talk to them again, hear their voices, see their faces, I don't really have the words to describe it

The only problem I'll be spending Christmas stuck in rehabilitation instead of back home, but at least they'll be able to visit me.

Assuming we don't all die a fireball in a week.

Think positive!


	7. Chapter 7

On the eight hundred and ninety-ninth day of their mission, the crew of the _Hermes_ took to their stations in the control room. It was the first time they had all gathered there since the ship had entered Martian orbit a little over two years ago on Mission Day 124, and the small room seemed even more cramped than it usually was.

Martinez sat before his console with the complex controls that would guide _Hermes,_ should the ship's computer suddenly fail and it could not make the course corrections required. Behind him, Johannssen and Watney sat at their own stations, where they would monitor the ship's overall health during the upcoming maneuver. Further back, Vogel kept track of the _Hermes_ as it traveled down the narrow reentry corridor it had to fly to successfully complete aerobraking, ready to compute the numbers for any course correction if so required. Beside him Beck sat, monitoring the both the ship's life support and the crew's health.

Finally at the front, next to Martinez, keeping in contact with Houston and watching over the rest of the crew, Commander Lewis sat. Though the ship and its crew were her overall responsibility, ironically she had the least to do directly in deciding the success of the maneuver. All she could do was watch, ready to intervene if some unforeseen circumstance made action necessary, and hoping nothing would come up.

None of them had slept very well the night before. The previous day had been a rush of activity as they locked down the centrifuge and secured loose items in preparation for today's maneuver. Even with the work to occupy their minds, the excitement of finally reaching Earth had kept them too wired to really sleep. In the morning, they ate the last of the protein bars they'd learned to despise during their long trip home, and drank a cup Martian coffee to finish waking up, the supply of real coffee and tea being exhausted over a year ago.

Though the windows of the control room the Earth loomed, its surface a swirl of bright brown land, deep blue oceans, and white clouds. For the first time since the Earth portion of the gravity assist maneuver almost a year and a half ago, they were too close to be able to view the entire planet.

"Houston, this is _Hermes,_ " Commander Lewis spoke crisply into her microphone. "We are conducting final checks for atmospheric braking maneuvers."

"Roger _Hermes_ ," came the reply from CAPCOM. "You're coming in straight down the pike. Begin radiator translation."

"Roger, Houston. Go for radiator translation," Lewis repeated. She turned in her seat towards the back of the control room. "Engineer, proceed with translation."

"Roger," Watney replied, "beginning radiator translation." He flipped back the protective covers back on several switches and activated them, unlocking the stoppers that prevented the radiator vanes from moving freely on their own. Then he threw another set of switches, activating the rotation motors.

On the hull of the ship, by its VASIMIR reactors, the heat radiators began to turn slowly. Normally the large rectangular radiators were kept with their long edges perpendicular to the ship. Now they rotated ninety degrees, and would appear to an outside observer as large flat metal sails. Except that rather than propelling the ship, they would act as massive brakes, dragging against the Earth's atmosphere and slowing the great ship down until it entered a stable orbit. It took a bit over a minute for the rotation of the four radiator vanes to be completed, upon which the motor locks were set back in place by Watney, insuring they would remain in this position for the next portion of the maneuver. "Cooling vanes locked into aerobraking position," he reported.

"Acknowledged. Vogel, time to entry interface?" Lewis asked.

"Five minutes, twenty-five seconds," Vogel replied, checking the reading on his computer display. "We are at an altitude of 95 kilometers, descending at 45 meters per second."

"Thank you. Johannssen, reactor status?"

"All non-essential systems offline," Johannssen reported. "Reactors are at minimal power." With the radiator vanes acting as brakes, they would soon heat up as a result of atmospheric friction, interfering with their ability to cool the reactors. As a result, the VASIMIR reactors were operating at the minimum power necessary for life support and control of the ship. Even the ion drive was shut off until it would be needed again.

"Beck, life support status?"

"All green," Beck reported.

"Thank you. Martinez, are you ready?"

"Ready, willing, and able," Martinez said, cracking his knuckles briefly. "We'll be in a stable orbit in less than thirty minutes."

"Let's hope so." She turned her attention back to Mission Control. "Houston, this is _Hermes._ We are go for aerobraking."

"Acknowledged, _Hermes,"_ came the reply from CAPCOM. "Good luck."

As the crew waited in tense silence, Watney spoke up, "Remember what I said about barrel rolls, Martinez."

For a brief moment, laughter filled the control room.

Around the world, attention turned briefly to the event. This was the third time that _Hermes_ had performed this maneuver in its operational lifetime, and it lacked the unique human drama provided by Watney's escape from the red planet. The audience was barely a quarter of what it had been on that day,

In Houston, the families of the _Hermes_ crew, more acutely aware of the significance of the event, had gathered to watch in the VIP section of Mission Control. Watney's parents had been drawn from their Chicago home at the behest of the other families, finally meeting them for the first time. Beck's sister, and Lewis's husband David, sat with them, as they kept each other calm by talking about how wonderful it would be to see their loved ones again.

In her seat, Marissa Martinez sat a squirming David in her lap. He had entered kindergarten in September, and didn't quite understand what all the excitement was about. His father was someone his mother spoke of often, but the boy only really knew as a spaceman they sometimes watched on TV.

Johannssen's mother and father sat together, gripping each other's hands tightly, her mother openly crying. She was pale, having undergone bypass surgery six months earlier after a heart attack. They had debated telling their daughter about what had happened, but had elected to keep silent, not wanting to distract her from her duties.

Helena Vogel sat with her children, everyone holding hands. Two weeks previously, Vogel's mother had quietly slipped into a coma. She was not expected to survive long enough for her son to escape the required medical monitoring period, after the crew returned to the Cape, so he could see her one last time. Like Beth Johannssen's parents, Helena had elected to keep this information secret, to avoid unnecessary stress on her husband during this critical period. She knew he would understand.

In Mission Control Mitch Henderson paced, watching the graphic on the big center screen, showing the _Hermes_ traveling dead center between two lines that represented the highest and lowest safe altitude for the aerobraking maneuver. Even though all seemed well, he was acutely aware that could change in a second's notice.

With everyone else, he watched, and waited.

 _Hermes_ dropped down in the Earth's atmosphere, entering what was referred to as the Mesopause. Eighty kilometers above the surface of the planet, it marked the division between the Thermosphere and the Mesosphere, the two highest sections of the Earth's detectable atmosphere. At only about 0.1mb in pressure, it was also the highest point that water vapor was able to form. By comparison the pressure at the sea level was 1000mb, over ten thousand times as dense.

Even with that miniscule amount of pressure, _Hermes's_ tremendous velocity was slowed, as pressure waves built against the nose of the ship and its enormous radiator vanes. Martinez and Vogel kept careful watch as the ship shed its momentum, looking for any sign that it was losing speed either too quickly, or too slowly.

Lewis kept in contact with Houston, relaying the ship's status, letting them know that the crew was still okay. Even though Mission Control was receiving a constant stream of telemetry data, the numbers didn't convey the most important information, the state of the crew. Even decades after the disasters of _Challenger_ and _Columbia,_ the belief that the crews of those ill-fated ships survived their initial catastrophes long enough to understand their doom persisted in some circles, even within NASA. More than anything else the team at Mission Control needed to know that the crew, not just their vessel, were all right.

Strapped in his seat, Watney drummed his fingers unconsciously on his control panel, keeping his eyes glued to the figures on his screen. Trying not to the think about the doors to the VAL. The tough outer door had been undamaged in the controlled decompression. The inner one had a twenty centimeter wide hole blasted in it by Vogel's bomb, which had been repaired by Johannssen and Lewis in the days following Watney's rescue, using a large plastic composite patch intended for meteorite impact repairs, sealed by more of the resin that had proved critical to Watney's survival on Mars. Even if the outer door malfunctioned by some dark mischance, the repaired inner door _should_ hold. He'd inspected the repairs himself once he'd healed enough to move freely again. And even if that door lost pressure somehow, the compartment behind it was sealed as well. There was nothing to worry about, he told himself, and wished he could believe it.

"Two minutes to periapsis," Johannssen announced.

Watney snapped out of his worried fugue. "Ready to translate radiators back to normal flight position," he announced.

"Standby," Lewis called to him. "Vogel, how are we on velocity?"

"Current velocity 28,500 km per second and falling," he replied. "We are safely within normal parameters. One minute thirty seconds to periapsis." In other words, they were less than two minutes from the lowest calculated point in their orbit around Earth. Which in the laws of orbital mechanics meant it would be the most energy efficient point to apply thrust to change their orbit.

"We're good, Commander," Martinez confirmed. "Ready to burn the jets."

Lewis checked the event timer on her control display. "Watney, prepare to translate radiators on my mark." When the timer reached sixty seconds to periapsis, she called out, " _Mark!_ "

Once more Watney began flipping controls. The motor locks were released, and slowly the radiator vanes rotated back to their original positions, presenting the minimal amount of drag while the ship rose back out of the atmosphere.

With one exception.

"Malfunction in Vane 3," he said, his voice not showing the jolt of terror that suddenly ran through him. "It's jammed at 41 degrees."

"Houston, are you seeing this?" Lewis demanded.

"We confirm your reading, _Hermes_ ," came CAPCOM's reply. "Do you have a visual on Vane 3?"

"Confirm visual, Commander," Johannssen reported. "I've got it on Camera Five. It's definitely stuck. Thirty seconds to periapsis," she added.

"Martinez, if the vane remains in its current position, will you be able to put us into a safe orbit?"

"I can try," he said, furrowing his brow in worry. "I can use the remaining fuel in the maneuvering thrusters to give us an extra boost and compensate for the offset the drag to put on our course." His fingers danced over his console, running numbers. "Yeah, but it'll use up so much we won't have enough left to dock safely at the Shipyard. We'll be stuck until someone can come along and refuel the OMS."

"Watney, can you get it unstuck?" Lewis asked. "Johanssenn, reactor status?"

"Fully online," she reported. "We're ready to start up the ion engine."

"Standby," Martinez interrupted, touching his controls. "Starting main engine. We're accelerating."

"Commander, we have three minutes until we must begin using the thrusters to shape our orbit properly," Vogel said.

"Working on it," Watney said tightly. He flipped the switches controlling Vane 3 back and forth, hoping to free the jam. It was the equivalent of rattling a stuck door handle, hoping the parts would shake back in place to function properly. Back and forth it went, Watney's sweating fingers making the switches damp. Once. Twice.

Finally on the third try the recalcitrant radiator vane moved past the 41 degree mark, returning to its normal flight position. Watney quickly locked it in place, and Johannssen confirmed his success with both the ship's telemetry and Camera 5.

"That's it," Martinez said triumphantly. "We're back in the green to reach a safe orbit. Might have to give the thrusters a short burn to circularize it, but that shouldn't eat too badly into what we got left."

"We confirm Major Martinez's evaluation, _Hermes_ ," Houston reported. "You're green for orbital insertion."

Within ten minutes, _Hermes_ rose back to a low earth orbit, just a hundred and twenty kilometers above the surface of the planet. In an hour they reached apoapsis, where Martinez burned the main engine briefly to circularize their orbit, having no need to use the thrusters.

The great ship orbited the planet Earth at 7.8 kms, fast enough to circle the planet indefinitely if it wanted.

Ares 3 had finally come home.

 **LOG ENTRY**

 **DECEMBER 24th, 2037**

Y'know it took me three tries to enter the correct date in there? I kept wanting to type in "Mission Day Number so-and-so." I'm so used to using sols and mission days, it's gonna take me a while to remember how to use a normal calendar again. Shit, I'm still trying to remember what year it really is. I left on the Worst Camping Trip Ever in 2035 after all. It's hard to believe it's 2037 now.

Doesn't matter. I'm home. On the ground. On Earth. There are no more mission days, or sols. Just days, months, and years. And thanks to everyone on the crew and here on Earth, I'm going to have a lot of years to enjoy now.

After shitting myself over that jammed radiator vane during the aerobraking maneuver, Martinez got _Hermes_ to orbit and then piloted us for six hours to rendezvous with the OSIC. Actually it only took five hours to reach it. The last hour was spent _very slowly_ inching _Hermes_ into the OSIC's docking module. When something as big as the _Hermes_ and the OSIC try to make beautiful music together, you have to move in millimeters per minute. It's the only way to make sure neither of the craft get seriously damaged when they finally dock.

Once we were successfully docked, there was a half-hour of fooling around to make the pressure between the station and our ship was equalized properly, and then we opened both the hatches. As the _Hermes'_ engineer, it was my responsibility to open our side up. When I did I kinda just stared for a minute, looking at the OSIC's crew. They were the first people, aside from my own crew, that I had seen face-to-face in over two years.

Thankfully the silence didn't last long, because the first words out of the station commander's mouth were, "You said '30 minutes or it's free' man!"

Once I finished laughing my ass off, we kinda floated together and hugged each other. After that we got down to business connecting the _Hermes_ to the OSIC's umbilicals, and running through the shutdown checklist.

It was a pretty melancholy moment, putting that ship to sleep. It had been my home for over a year, and everyone else's for over _two_ years. It had gone far beyond its design specs for a single mission, keeping everyone alive and saving my ass. I hope they'll be able to overhaul it so it could continue doing its job. I'd hate to think we pushed it so hard it would have to be written off.

Next I got to try on my shiny new flight suit, with its really expensive tailored gloves. It all fit perfectly. Once we were assured that was problem was out of the way, the rest of the Ares 3 crew got dressed in their own suits and we piled into the Orbital Science Corp. mini-shuttle, which was docked to the OSIC's other airlock. Since we'd be flying back into Earth normal gravity for the first time in two years, Martinez was stuck being a passenger while one of the OSIC's crew did the piloting. In less than two hours we deorbited and came to a rolling stop at Cape Kennedy's runway.

I'd like to say I hopped out immediately and kissed the ground, but the truth is I just sat in my seat, sweating in my flight suit and feeling like someone had dumped a bag of bricks on my chest. Even though I'd been doing my exercises once I'd recovered from my injuries, I was still three times heavier now than I'd been all during my journey to Mars and back.

Fortunately there were plenty of helping hands to ease me out of the mini-shuttle and onto a reclining wheelchair. From there I was whisked into an ambulance to be transported to the recovery center, where all returning long duration crews have to spend several days going through medical evaluations and getting physical rehabilitation to re-learn how to walk in Earth normal gravity. Given the extended and extraordinary nature of our particular mission, we were looking forward to being stuck in there for at least two weeks, with periodic medical checkups to follow for months after our release.

After I was helped out of my flight suit, I went through a quick medical exam and got dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and the sweater that Mom made for me. Then I was wheeled into a little lounge area. There I found my parents waiting for me, looking older, more tired, and happier than I'd ever seen them.

I'd love to say that I did something really manly like fist bumping my dad and telling my mom thanks for the sweater. But I didn't. What I did do was hug them both and cry like a little lost kid for about fifteen minutes. It wasn't until I saw them that I really, _really_ believed that it was finally over, that I was _home._

There's part of me that still believes it can't be real. That I can just _walk outside_ without a spacesuit and not have worry about exploding. That I can get water from a tap without having to break down rocket fuel. That I can light a fire in a room and not have worry about it being instant death. That I can eat food, any kind of food I want, and it won't be potatoes, or protein bars. Heck, I could eat ice cream if I wanted. Real ice cream made from frozen cow's milk and sugar (and who the fuck thought that was a great combination to try two hundred years ago? Seriously.), not a chemical brick you can buy at the National Air & Space Museum's gift shop.

I think the hardest thing to take is that I'm never going to be able thank people enough for what they did to save me. "Pay it Forward" is a nice idea, but short of me discovering a cure for cancer, I can't pay forward or back the fact that five of my crew sacrificed a year and a half of their lives for my sake. That so many others paid so much.

NASA and the Chinese National Space Program poured hundreds of millions of dollars into my rescue. How do I pay that back?

Martinez has a son who doesn't recognize him. How do I pay that back?

Bruce Ng separated from his spouse due to the stress of overseeing JPL's operations during my rescue. They're in counseling I'm told, but it doesn't look good. How do I pay that back?

Mitch Henderson tendered his resignation the day we landed at the Cape. I can guess what he was responsible for. How do I pay that back?

How do I pay any of that back?

I guess the answer is, "I can't."

Of all the problems I've faced over the past two and half years, this is one that just doesn't have a solution. Except to accept the gift that was given to me, paid for by their unselfish efforts.

Maybe someday I'll be able to pay it back, at least a bit. Give blood. Donate my time and brains to a good cause. Point somebody in the right direction when they're lost. All little things, compared to what was done to save me. But it'll be something.

Humans like to help each other. We're funny like that.

Merry Christmas.

 **The End**


End file.
